


Destination

by Terr



Series: Already Gone sequels [1]
Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27207064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terr/pseuds/Terr
Summary: Chiara and Ethan find themselves in Miami almost five years after their first conference there. This time, Ethan needs to ask Chiara a certain question.
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Already Gone sequels [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986232
Kudos: 9





	Destination

**Author's Note:**

> Words count: 4 200  
> Warnings: mostly fluff, however there is a scene including fertility issues and then one slightly NSFW scene (you can easily skip that one if you are not comfortable)

“Sooo, are you looking forward to your weekend with Dr. Dreamy?” Sienna smiled knowingly at Chiara as they stood next to a vending machine.

Chiara chuckled at Sienna’s excitement. “I am looking forward to hotel breakfast and weekend with Ethan and Miami sun, but it’s still work-related trip. Ethan hates conferences, he is going to be Dr. Grumpy the whole weekend.”

Before any of them could say anything else, Chiara spotted her very own Dr. Ramsey coming down the hall in their direction.

_Damn, he really is Dr. Dreamy._

As he approached them, Ethan smiled at Sienna and then turned to Chiara with a clipboard in his hand.

“I need you to sign this. And you should eat other things than chocolate bars from a vending machine, Chiara.”

She rolled her eyes at him and signed the papers he handed her, pleased to see that they were actually discharging papers of a young boy they have been treating for past three weeks.

“Thank you, babe,” Ethan gifted her one quick smile before storming off.

For what could have been a solid minute, she stared at the spot he disappeared, her mouth agape. Slowly, she turned back to Sienna, who was smiling even wider at her, and asked: “Did you just hear that? Did that really happen? He never called me babe before. We are together for three years and he never called me babe.”

“You two should already get married,” Sienna replied, ignoring Chiara’s shock.

Chiara let out a short laugh at Sienna’s remark, turning back to the vending machine so that she could finally get her chocolate bar.

“That’s not happening,” she shrugged, trying to look like she couldn’t care less.

“What?!” Sienna shouted, attracting the attention of two nurses passing them. “You don’t want to?”

“Ethan doesn’t believe in marriage. It makes no sense to him and I kind of understand that. And I am fine with it. I have known about his opinion on marriages even before we got together.”

As she unwrapped the bar and took a bite, Sienna crossed her arms across her chest and looked at her with her brows furrowed.

“And you are telling me that you don’t care? That you don’t want to marry him? Who are you kidding, Chiara Ray? I know you want to get married one day, I have personally seen your Pinterest board named ‘wedding dress’” she raised her eyebrow now, not letting Chiara fool her with the light tone of her voice.

“Well, a girl can dream,” Chiara smiled at her best friend, knowing she needed to give Sienna an explanation so that she would let the topic go. “Of course I would love to marry one day, but the important point is that I would love to marry Ethan. And he doesn’t feel like marrying and I would never force him to do so. I would rather spend my not-married life with Ethan than the married one with anyone else.”

“Sweet,” Sienna murmured, her lips in a tight line. “Just so that you know, I already have my maid of honor speech written.”

Chiara burst out laughing and hugged the tiny doctor she adored so much. “You are the best,” she whispered, still laughing at the pained expression on Sienna’s face.

˜

That evening, Chiara stepped into Ethan’s apartment, surprised by the fact that it was absolutely quiet. She knew that Ethan’s shift was ending sooner that hers today and on days like that, he would usually wait for her in a living room or cook dinner in a kitchen. She took her shoes off and walked into the kitchen, where the pasta was already cooked, however the man that cooked it was nowhere to be seen.

As she crossed the living room, she heard his voice coming from the bedroom. Ethan was standing by the window, his back turned to Chiara and he was oblivious to her arrival.

“…yes, of course. We will. Thank you again, it means more than you could imagine to me. And once again, I am deeply sorry for doing it on such a short notice. Yes-“

Chiara decided it was the time to make sure he knew she was home and so she cleared her throat, which made Ethan turn at his feet immediately, his eyes widening.

“Sure, yes. I will. Goodbye.” He hung up and shoved the phone into his pocket, raising his eyebrows on Chiara. “I see you are home.”

“Yes. Who were you talking to? You look a little bit… startled.”

“Me? Uh, no. Not at all,” Ethan shrugged, pretending to stare out of window. “I was talking to Zaid actually, he will be taking care of my patients while we are in Miami and I needed to check on something.”

“You could’ve just emailed him,” Chiara squinted her eyes on him.

“Well, I wanted to call him,” Ethan smiled all too brightly for Chiara to believe a word of his story, but she decided to let it go in hope of peaceful evening. “Are you hungry? The dinner is ready. And you should pack, we leave at the noon.”

“Yes, doctor,” she nodded and followed him to the kitchen because no matter Ethan’s mystery, she really was hungry.

˜

As they made their way through the hotel’s atrium, Chiara – holding Ethan’s free hand – couldn’t believe how much has changed since her intern year. The hotel was the same, even the man at the reception desk was the same one, but the circumstances couldn’t have been any more different.

“Reservation for Ethan Ramsey,” Ethan said as they approached the reception desk.

“Yes, Mr. Ramsey. Here, the card to your room. Everything is ready.”

Ethan nodded, took the card and with his hand on the small of Chiara’s back made his way to the elevator.

Once they were alone, Chiara muttered: “That was so weird. I mean, their hotel is hosting a medical conference. It’s packed with doctors by now and he calls you Mr. Ramsey? Why not Dr. Ramsey? And ‘everything is ready’? Like, _what_ everything is ready? You punching anyone? The pamphlets about plastic surgery? The mini bar? Weird.”

Ethan laughed at her outburst, noticing her flushed cheeks and fire in her eyes as she spoke about something as trivial as weird receptionist.

There were moments – like this one – when Ethan caught himself staring at her. When she got angry and her eyes burned with rage. When she was with a patient and the gentleness of her voice was filling the whole room. When she was asleep and looked as peaceful as a child, her mouth slightly parted, her arms always hugging something – when it couldn’t be Ethan, she hugged a pillow or a blanket.

She would tease him about it, about him staring. She would often grin and just tell him ‘you could always take a photo, you know’. He knew he could. But no photo could ever capture the brightness surrounding her every move, no photo could ever make him feel like she makes him feel, like the Sun could be swallowed by a Black hole and he wouldn’t give a damn because he would have his Chiara, shining so brightly it almost hurt him sometimes.

_The world doesn’t deserve Chiara. But oh, Chiara does deserve the whole world._

“I might have lied about the conference,” Ethan admitted as they stepped out of an elevator to the corridor they both knew so well. “Only partly, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“This hotel _is_ hosting a conference this weekend. Just not a medical one. An IT conference, I think?”

Chiara shot him a confused look as they stopped in front of the door leading to the suite. “What exactly are we doing here, then? Are you planning to change career?”

“Jesus, no,” he chuckled, opening the door and letting her in.

She knew the suite. Stepping further in, she noticed every single detail she could remember about this very suite and she knew that there were no coincidences this big in the world.

“You planned this?” she turned to Ethan, who was smiling softly back at her, closing the door with a soft thud.

“We are both working more than we should and I thought we could use a break. I wanted to surprise her.”

She smiled widely and jumped on him, kissing his cheeks and his nose and finally finding his mouth, all the tenderness gone.

They stumbled through the room until they both fell on the bed, Chiara’s back hitting the mattress, Ethan hovering over her, now kissing her neck and the spot behind her ear, knowing that by the time they would get to the beach, the sun would be setting.

˜

His calculations were right. The sun was setting and Ethan and Chiara walked through the warm sand, their feet bare, shoes hanging in their hands.

Ethan was wearing white linen button up, the long sleeves rolled up, exposing the forearms Chiara loved so much. She often joked that she could stare at Ethan’s forearms and those veins on them for hours and wouldn’t get bored. With beige shorts, he looked like he belonged to Mediterranean and Chiara didn’t hesitate to point the fact out.

They walked in silence, knowing each other too well to fill the comfortable calmness with plotless small talks.

Although, even if Ethan wanted to say anything, he was so nervous he became incapable of saying a single word.

_Maybe this is all stupid. Maybe I shouldn’t do it today. There are too many people and.._

“Looks like we found a place without crowds,” Chiara interrupted his thoughts and really, they were almost entirely alone on the beach now. “Can we sit down a bit?”

He nodded and sat down next to Chiara, considering his next move.

_What do you do now, Ramsey? Why are there no schools for this? How do I know when is the right time?_

“Is something bothering you, Ethan?” Chiara leaned to him, observing the wrinkles between his brows. “You can talk to me, you know.”

_See? You can talk to her. So talk. Now. Do it before she gives up on you._

He turned towards her completely and smiled, shaking his head. “I am fine. Just thinking.”

“About what?”

He looked her in the eyes, praying that she could see how he felt in his eyes when looking back.

“Do you remember, in your intern year, when you told me that you wanted to work by my side? That it was your honor to work with Dr. Ramsey?”

“Yes. You told me that you find an idolatry among physicians absurd.”

He grinned at the fact that she remembered every detail about them and continued.

“Exactly. That was what I believed back then. But after four years of working with you, of knowing you, after three years of being with you, of loving you, I might feel… different. You accomplished something I have never thought possible – you turned me into a better person. Into actually decent human being. With your patience and your love, with your ability to come back into my life after I tried my hardest to push you away. With giving me time to repair all my broken pieces and with repairing some of them yourself. With challenging me like no one has ever done before, both in and outside of work. All those things turned me into someone I have never even dreamt of being and I hope, with all my heart, that you know how happy I am thanks to you, Chiara. I hope you know how much I care about you, how much I love you and how much I want to make you happy too.”

“You make me incredibly happy, Ethan,” she smiled back at him, touched by his words.

“Back then, in your intern year, I thought looking up to someone, the idolatry… it was stupid to me. Incomprehensible. But now, four years later, I know what you meant what you said that it was your honor to work with Dr. Ramsey. And I would like to ask you for a chance to experience the feeling too.”

“Would you allow me to experience the honor of working with Dr. Ramsey?”

Chiara’s initial confusion soon turned into realization and then straight into shock.

“Are you saying what I think you are saying?” she stuttered.

Ethan already on one knee answered her question even without speaking.

The tears were now streaming down her face, the tears of shock and happiness and finally, complete dread.

She wanted to say yes. She wanted to jump on him and hug him and scream that she did want to become his wife, that there was nothing more that she wanted than to become Dr. Ramsey.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

It was Ethan’s turn to be shocked, his mouth open and brows furrowed, pain and confusion written all over his face.

“You… you can’t?”

“I can’t and you know why, Ethan. You know I can’t have kids.” She was crying loudly by now. “I will never be able to give you that one thing a wife should be able to give. And don’t tell me that maybe I will get pregnant by some miracle. We’ve been having unprotected sex for almost three years now and I have never even gotten close to being pregnant.”

That was true. Ever since making their relationship official, they decided that there was no need to protect themselves. Chiara couldn’t get pregnant and if by some miracle, as she called it, she actually did get pregnant, there would be nothing but happiness for both of them.

“Chiara,” he breathed out, scooping her into his arms. “Shh, Chiara girl.”

“No, I know what you want to say, Ethan. I remember you telling me that kids were not in cards for you, that you can’t see yourself have them. But hell, you never believed in marriage and look at yourself, dropping down on one knee to ask me to marry you. You will change your mind about children too and what then? You will find out that I am useless and we will get divorced so that you could have them with someone else and why going through divorce if we can just break up when the time comes?”

Chiara was right about one thing. He could imagine having kids now. He could imagine putting his career aside and be a family man.

All his life, he wanted to be a good doctor and his main motivation was to help people. But deep down, he knew – and he was disgusted with himself because of it – that he wanted to be a good doctor so that people would respect him, admire him even. He believed that even when people couldn’t love him for who he was, when people could leave Ethan Ramsey, that they wouldn’t leave The Dr. Ramsey. The famous one, the best one.

All his life, he needed to prove his worth to others and to himself and he decided to do it by putting everything into his work.

And then Chiara came. And she loved him when he was nothing but a wreck. When he resembled nothing of The Dr. Ramsey. She found his worth and with her, he found his own worth too and he knew it was not his awards nor his glory.

He could settle down. He wanted to settle down.

With Chiara.

“Chiara, I asked you to marry me because I want to spend my life with _you._ I am happy with _you_. And if I am to ever have kids, I want them with you. I can’t imagine, ever in my life, wanting to marry anyone else but you. For almost 40 years, the idea of marrying someone has not crossed my mind once. Until you changed that. If you think I would want to have a child with anyone else than with the woman I wish to marry, then you need to think again. And really hard.”

He took her chin between his fingers and made her look at him.

“I am honest and I am serious and I am sure, Chiara Ray. It’s important for me that you understand this: if I ever have a child, I want to have a child with you. That doesn’t mean that it has to be our biological child. If we ever both agree that we would like to become parents, we can go for an adoption. Okay?”

He cupped he cheeks and pressed long, soft kiss on her forehead.

She nodded slowly and looked at him with shameful expression on her face, biting her lower lip so hard she could feel the iron taste of her own blood.

“Okay, let me try one more time,” he chuckled, dropping down on one knee again, opening the navy blue velvet box, revealing the most beautiful ring Chiara has ever seen. Golden band sprigged with little diamonds and in the middle, opal as blue as Ethan’s eyes.

_I can’t believe he remembered it._

It was maybe two years ago. Chiara got drunk with her friends on Friday night and Ethan decided to get her to his place, not believing her – equally drunk - friends to take care of her. As they laid down to the bed at his place, Chiara mumled _“You have the most beautiful eyes in the whole galaxy. If we get married someday, I want my engagement ring to have a stone in your eyes’ color”_

She was terribly embarrassed the next day and they swore to never talk about it again.

And Ethan remembered it.

“Chiara, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she answered softly, stretching her hand so that he could slide the ring on.

He wrapped her into his arms and kissed her, starting softly, gently, until they kissed the way that was anything but appropriate for public. Looking at each other for a short moment, they nodded and took off back to the hotel, doing their best not to run.

˜

Ethan came out to the balcony in nothing but his short, smiling at the sight in front of him. Chiara’s hair, damp from the shower, put in a messy bun, Ethan’s white shirt now framing her body. She was leaning on the railing, a glass of red wine in her hand, lost so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t notice him approaching.

He stopped by the doorframe and couldn’t help but let his mind wander back to their shared shower.

_They barely made it into their suite._

_The moment the door closed after them, Chiara worked on the wooden buttons of Ethan’s shirt, all while kissing him with a passion one could only find at a beach, and making their way to the bathroom._

_Their clothes ending scattered on the floor, like a pesky obstacle they were, Ethan pressed Chiara on the shower wall, the cold tiles almost overpowering contrast to her feverish naked back._

_That’s how Ethan found himself kneeling in front of her for the third time that evening. Only this time, no question needed to leave his mouth to gain an “yes” from her._

_As he kissed his way up her inner tight, the salty sea flavor mixed with the typical taste of her skin, he heard her moan._

_“Yes.”_

_He couldn’t help it – and he didn’t want to. Looking up at her flushed face, her eyes closed and her lower lip trembling of lust and thrill overtaking her, the picture blurred by the steam of hot water already surrounding them, he didn’t even try to suppress his urge to command._

_“Say it again.”_

_“Yes,” she growled louder as his tongue gave up on tasting the peculiar mixture of salty and sweet on her tight and found its way to her center, to the one spot she longed him to have since they took off the beach._

_Ethan only needed to hear one ‘yes’ from her tonight._

_But how could he resist such temptation?_

_The “yes” she whimpered as he abruptly stopped working his tongue on her and moved up to slightly tease her nipple with his lower lip before taking it into his mouth._

_The “yes” she hissed as he bit it while pinching the other one with his fingers, the most sizzling combo of pleasure and pain going through her body, through her rib bones and her spine._

_The “yes” he silenced with an open mouthed kiss as he finally lifted her up, his hands roaming up and down her bottom and her tights with such purpose he wondered if he used them incorrectly his whole life._

_The “yes” she whined as he thrusted into her, his moves steady and hard, promising her his whole life with every single one._

_The “yes” she screamed as their hips met halfway on their race to the pleasure building in their bodies, in the parts that have been joined both physically and not. Ethan felt his pleasure begging to be released, he felt he was close and at the same time, as irrational as it sounded, he felt like his chest might explode the very moment he would come inside of her._

_They “yes” she cried as her own pleasure overtook her, the one coming from the place where her mind no longer existed, where there were only waves of pure ecstasy and the raving beating of her heart._

_Ethan didn’t need to hear any of these yes’s, but every single one of them was the sweetest reaffirmation of the one he needed her to say tonight._

_Every single one a confirmed promise to let him hear all of her yes’s for the rest of his life._

He shook his head to get the picture out of his head and asked: “What are you thinking about?”

She turned around swiftly, waving her hand at him, gesturing for him to join her.

“About my parents. We have to call my mom tomorrow, she won’t believe you proposed.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Ethan asked, half curious, half confused.

“I made sure to let her know that you were not a marriage type before we visited them in San Francisco for the first time. I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable because trust me, she would bring it up otherwise,” Chiara laughed, mostly for herself. “She will be surprised, but in a good way! Promise.”

Ethan took her hand into his and brought her knuckles up to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss on them.

“We will definitely call her, however I doubt she will be surprised,” he muttered into her hand. “Yesterday, when you caught me talking to ‘Zaid’ on the phone, I was talking to her. I called her to ask for her blessing.”

“You did what?” Chiara exclaimed, turning her whole body to Ethan now. “A blessing?”

“Of course. I want to marry her daughter, I need her blessing. That’s how it’s done.”

Chiara laughed, though not teasingly. “We live in a twenty-first century. You didn’t have to do it. Did you google the process of engaging?”

Ethan muttered something like ‘ _you are always going to be a pain in my ass, aren’t you’_ , though she couldn’t quite decipher it with his lips still pressed to her hand.

“I wanted the blessing from her, Chiara. We talked about your dad a lot too, if you must know. She told me I would get his permission too.”

“You would,” Chiara smiled sadly. “I was just thinking about how happy he would be. He would also tell you that he knows how to use a gun. He never knew how to use a gun, he just said so to every single boy that ever crossed our house.”

A single tear found its way out of Chiara’s eye as she talked about her father, pain and happiness and love mixed in the tone of her voice.

“He would be so proud, walking me down the aisle.”

“Your parents are both proud of you every day, Chiara,” Ethan whispered, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “And as you said, we live in a twenty-first century. You don’t have to be walked down the aisle if that would be too painful for you. We will find our way.”

“The thing is, I would love to. I actually thought about, you know.. maybe..” she started to play with the glass of wine, suddenly not knowing how to say it out loud. “It’s just that these past years, Naveen has become a second father to me. I can imagine him taking the place but it’s probably stupid, right? I thought about asking him when we come back but saying it out loud, I probably shouldn’t… or should I? What do you think?”

Ethan smiled at both, her nervous rambling and the picture of Naveen and Chiara walking side by side down the aisle.

“I personally think that we should bring a lot of tissues when we go to see Naveen and you ask him to do it. He will cry for hours, spending all his happy tears on us.”


End file.
